Essie said her father saw the opportunity even before the embargo was lifted, making sure to get in before any of the other evangelicals managed a foothold. Back then you could travel for “cultural exchanges” and Jethro Hicks himself went on many of the earlier, smaller trips. When trade did resume, tourism spiked and the average Cuban household began to have some surplus cash lying around. Much of it went to things like rice and toilet paper, but some of it went to Essie’s dad, or to his church at least. Even some of the Catholics converted. Anything American had a certain shine to it and they were eager to join the flock.
Pastor Hicks would say that he was reaching out to those who were most like Jesus. They were poor. They were humble. They had long turned the other cheek under the reign of the Castro brothers, or something of the sort. But Essie said he made quite a bundle out of the licensing agreements to broadcast his sermons on one of the newly established cable stations. He made even more for his role as administrator and fund-raiser for the boarding school we were going to visit on this trip.
“That doesn’t make you mad?” I asked Essie as we sat in the airport in Miami a little away from the others and waited for our next flight.
She shrugged. “It used to, when I first realized, but then I realized something else.”
“What?”
“There’s no one who is not, deep down, truly selfish. Naomi taught me that, and she’s right. Of course, when she said it, she meant Lissa. I went through a phase after Lissa left when I refused to sit up straight in church and it was ruining all the shots. I wouldn’t listen to Mother, so she sent Naomi, who said I had to let Lissa go. That part I ignored, of course, but over the years I’ve found that the general rule ‘Everyone is selfish’ applies in other situations as well. I’m not saying there aren’t good people in this world and I’m not saying there aren’t people who run charities who are less selfish than Daddy. But everyone, to some degree or another, if they’re being really honest with themselves, is selfish way down deep.”
“And that made you feel better?” I asked, surprised.
“Sure,” she answered. “It meant that even if Daddy does what he does for all the wrong reasons, that doesn’t detract from the results. The school wouldn’t exist without Daddy, without his name and his image generating interest from donors. They write checks for lots of different reasons. Maybe they’re generous because they’re trying to make up for being cruel to someone earlier in the day or even years ago, or maybe they want to be able to tell their friends how pious they are. Maybe they’re even trying to buy their way into Heaven. It doesn’t matter. The children at the New Light School have a roof over their heads because my father makes people afraid of the very worst versions of themselves, of the secrets they keep wrapped up inside.”
“I thought he always said he wanted to help people embody the best version of themselves.” I was pretty sure something of that sort was printed on the brochures.
“Isn’t it basically the same thing?”
Essie looked pleased as she said this and not at all bitter, which I found strange. That the world has a tendency to reward the wicked is something I’ve always accepted, but it doesn’t make me happy. I didn’t know how to say all of this to Essie, though, so instead I said, “I’m not sure.”
“Well, there’s no reason to let it get you down. You’re here, in this place, because my parents are the sort of people that they are. If they aren’t good people, strictly speaking, does that mean you can’t enjoy this trip, learn something from it, maybe even make the world a little bit nicer, a little bit better along the way?”
I saw then that this was a conversation Essie had had before, with herself, probably many times over the years. Maybe it was her way of staying sane.
“Sure,” I told her. “I guess that makes sense. It’s a nice way to look at it, in any case. So is that how you’ve managed to stop being angry, by rationalizing everything they do?”
“Don’t get mad, get even,” Essie said then, looking out the window and over the tangle of taxiing planes on the hot pavement below. There was a pause and then she giggled, maybe to indicate that she was joking before she went on, “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
“That’s the saying,” I agreed, then asked, “Just how are you planning on getting even?”
And Essie turned her face away from the window to look at me and smiled sweetly, transparently. “I already did. I decided to marry you.”
* * *
—————
Not long after this we boarded the chartered jet, and though Gretchen tried to steer Essie into the seat beside her, Essie dropped something—on purpose, I think—and Gretchen had to step out of the way to let her pick it up, opening a path for Essie to move into the aisle next to me.
“It won’t be much longer,” Essie reassures me as we hit another patch of bumpy air. She speaks without looking up from her book. “We’ll be descending soon.”
She turns a page and I wonder for a moment if she’s really reading or if it’s just another act, if this too is for show since Essie knows that Gretchen will be reporting back on her every action, her every word. I shake my head and turn again toward the gray light coming through the window, feeling exhausted by the impossible task of deciphering Essie’s motives. No matter how often she claims that her life is an open book, the only thing that’s really clear to me is that it’s anything but that.
We land without fuss and walk down the stairs that lead off the plane and onto the tarmac, where we’re ushered through to customs. The official there stamps my stiff new passport, expedited for the bargain price of I don’t know how much, and gives me half a nod. On the other side of this desk there’s a driver holding a sign that says New Light and we gather in an awkward clump. I’m already sweating. From the small, open lobby of the airport, we walk out again into the bright light of the sun high overhead, lined up like obedient schoolchildren, past a throng of street vendors selling cold sodas and woven hats, and onto an air-conditioned bus. The cool air hits my face almost as if someone has splashed me with water. I throw my backpack onto one of the overhead racks while the driver loads the larger bags into the compartments underneath the bus.
This time, when we sit, Gretchen is successful in forcing Essie to a seat up near the front. I claim a spot a few rows behind, next to a boy not much older than me who introduces himself as Brady. He’s a sophomore at Bob Jones University in South Carolina and is on spring break, but he has arranged to get some sort of class credit for this trip. He’s never met any of the Hicks family except for Essie and he eagerly tells me how he talked to her a few times during the trip last year. He continues on with his biography, dropping hints about the other mission trips he’s been on, and it takes me some time to work out that he’s doing this because he wants me to like him, to approve. He’s treating me like some kind of royalty and it finally sinks in that I am for all intents and purposes now almost a Hicks myself.
Brady keeps spouting gibberish for pretty much the entire ride to the hotel, but as soon as it becomes clear that he isn’t paying any attention to whether or not I’m listening, I tune him out and watch a pair of motorcycles weaving through the traffic, through the mix of Studebakers and old Chevrolets. Then the bus pulls slowly up a long drive lined with towering palm trees and past the sign for the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, toward the twin turrets ahead. Winston Churchill stayed here, Essie told me, and Hemingway spent time drinking at the bar. I try to imagine what it looked like then, back in the 1940s. Probably not much different than it does right now. The lobby is cool in comparison to the heat that was bouncing off the pavement and I run my eyes over the warm tiled floor and the dark beams in the high ceiling. This seems a bit upscale for a mission trip, but I’m no longer surprised. I’m still looking up at an elaborate chandelier when Essie takes my hand.
“I told Gretchen to bring our keys outside when they finish checking
in.”
We leave our bags with a bellhop and Essie leads me through to the rear of the hotel and out onto a veranda that runs the length of the building. There’s a fountain and some gardens and, beyond that and far below, I glimpse the sea. I stop to take in the wide expanse of blue, but Essie pulls impatiently on my hand.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she says.
We wend our way past groups of cushioned chairs that are arranged around low round tables, all looking out over the grounds. A peacock wanders by, dragging his long tail feathers behind him. He perches briefly on the fountain’s edge and then awkwardly hops down and continues along his way.
“Esther Anne, as I live and breathe!” a voice booms out and Essie releases my hand and breaks into a run.
A dark-skinned gentleman with wild-looking gray hair throws his arms around Essie and then looks me over carefully. He stands beside a small bar that’s the same dark wood as the beams in the lobby.
“So, this is the boy?” he says.
Essie nods and extends her hand to wave us through introductions. “Hector, this is Roarke; Roarke, Hector.” Then she explains, “Hector has been working here for as long as my family has been coming. His granddaughter Beatrice will be starting at Fordham in the fall. Maybe we can have her over for dinner sometime after we’re settled.”
Hector smiles at this and then tells me, “When my son wanted to take his family over to the States because they needed to see medical specialists for their youngest, Esther’s parents helped with the paperwork and a recommendation for a job.”
There’s something about Essie’s smile that makes me wonder if she wasn’t the one behind this act of generosity, if maybe she hasn’t been pulling the strings for longer than I suspected, but there’s no way to ask her. And anyway, she would tell me that it doesn’t matter, that the result is the only thing that counts, not whatever happened behind the scenes.
Hector retreats behind the bar and begins to crush mint for two mojitos—minus the rum, of course. He catches Essie up on his son’s family and their five children. Juanita, the baby, has just undergone another heart surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital and is expected to do well. When a group gathers around the bar, Essie kisses Hector on the cheek and we leave him to the other guests. We walk, glasses in hand, until we can see down the rock face at the back of the property to the esplanade that runs along the shore. Musicians sit along the rock wall with their backs to the ocean, their horns to their lips, but the wind carries the sound away.
“That’s the Malecón,” Essie says. “It was originally built to serve as a protective barrier for the city, but now people mostly use it to feel close to the sea.”
We watch a fisherman cast his line, young people walking hand in hand. Behind them the blue of the ocean stretches out to the horizon.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, it’s spectacular all right. But I think I prefer the sort of things no one else realizes are beautiful, or that they don’t appreciate for what they really are, the things other people walk right by.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like you,” she tells me, and I worry for a moment that she wants to kiss me even though there are no cameras, but then she looks away.
* * *
—————
We drive to the school the following morning and at first the bus is mired in traffic, but as we move past the outskirts of the city, the brightly colored buildings give way to a lush green that stretches as far as I can see. Dogs nap in the warm strip of dirt that lines the highway. Children kick a soccer ball in a yard, using a laundry line as a goal. Beside me, Essie reads, but I keep my eyes on the landscape. I’ve never seen colors so vibrant and I realize how much of my life up until this point has been painted in various shades of brown or gray: the dry close-cropped grass in the small square yards of our neighborhood, the endless ribbons of cement, even the muted fields of corn or soy. None of it has looked like this.
After about an hour, we pull through a high iron gate into a courtyard in front of the school. Immediately, small faces pop up in the windows of the nearest classroom building, arms waving back and forth in greeting. The children smile broadly as they stream out of the buildings. Essie is quickly drawn away by two young girls in knee socks, and not long after she disappears into the crowd of people, a boy of perhaps eight or nine reaches out to take my hand. Once everyone is assembled, the principal welcomes us and then the first- and second-grade students step to the front to sing a song.
We spend the rest of the day building squat cinder-block enclosures behind the dormitories. When they’re finished, they will hold low-odor composting toilets that have been donated by the manufacturer—or at least that’s what we’re told. Later, we eat lunch on the ground with a group of students and they teach us a song about a man who lived with seven cats. After that, we work on the outhouses some more until it’s time to drive back to the hotel. There’s a buffet of different Cuban dishes that seems to stretch on for miles, but I’m so tired that I barely taste my food and the moment dinner has ended I go to my room and fall asleep.
* * *
—————
The next morning I knock on Essie’s door just before we’re supposed to meet for breakfast.
Her voice comes from behind the heavy door. “Just a minute!”
A toilet flushes. She’s wiping her face with a washcloth when she lets me in. She’s still in her pajamas and her hair’s a mess.
“This is what I have to look forward to, huh?” I tease.
Her face goes pale and at first I’m afraid that I’ve broken some girl rule by joking about her appearance, but then she runs back into the bathroom and throws up. I hear the toilet flush again.
“Laugh all you like, but you might be next,” she says with her back to me while standing at the sink. She reaches for her toothbrush and goes on, “I must have eaten a bad mussel or something. How do you feel?”
“Fine,” I tell her. “Do you want me to tell Gretchen you’re too sick to come today?”
Essie finishes up in the bathroom and shakes her head. “No. I’ll probably be fine once I get something in my stomach. I feel better already. See?”
She throws her hands up and wiggles her fingers as if she has just finished a dance routine.
“Not quite camera ready,” I say skeptically. “Why don’t I give you a minute to get dressed? And maybe brush your teeth again.”
I step back into the hall and wait while she pulls on shorts and a T-shirt and then we go downstairs. After breakfast, we spend the day back at the school. Brady and I finish the toilet enclosure we started yesterday and then wander back to the central yard to ask what we should do next. We find Essie and a group of the older schoolchildren, paintbrushes in hand. Where there had been a blank white wall that morning there is now an intricate mural, bold bright colors wrapping around one another and spiraling outward from a central image of a white star against a background of red that echoes the one found on the country’s flag.
“That’s amazing,” I say.
Essie shakes her head and waves her brush in the direction of the two oldest students. “Elena and Fernando are amazing. I’m just doing as I’m told.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I tell her and laugh.
Essie smiles back at me, but then her face goes ashen and I think for a moment that she’s going to faint. It lasts only a few seconds, but it’s long enough and something clicks that I should’ve seen before.
“I think I need some shade,” Essie says, then sets down her paintbrush and wipes her hands across the bottom of her shirt.
I follow her to a patch of grass underneath a tree. She doesn’t look sick now, only pale and tired, and I try to remember clearly what she had to eat the night before.
W
e sit for a while before I work up the courage to say, “You didn’t eat the mussels. I didn’t realize that until just now.”
Essie shrugs. “It must have been something else, then. What does it matter?”
I pull up a blade of grass and twirl it between my fingers. I can feel her eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to meet them. I don’t want to let her see how angry I am at being treated like a fool.
“You’re pregnant,” I say then, and I don’t even need to look at Essie to know it’s true.
Esther
My heart is pounding even before Roarke manages to say the words.
I ask, “Does it matter?”
It is a stupid thing to say, but I am trying to buy time, to think of some reasonable explanation for why I didn’t tell Roarke before. Now that he is sitting next to me and we have come to this point, I realize that there is no excuse that will make what I did okay.
“Does it matter that you’re pregnant?” Roarke says in disbelief. “No. Not to me. That’s what I would have said two weeks ago. I barely knew you. So how could it have possibly meant anything to me if I found out then? You know what? I take that back. It would have mattered even then, because two weeks ago I would have probably felt more than a twinge of satisfaction that the prissy little preacher’s daughter had gone and got herself knocked up. Cosmic karma, that’s what I would have called it.”
“That’s not what happened,” I say, my voice trembling. “I didn’t go and get myself knocked up.”
The Book of Essie Page 13